Glenfiddich Snow Phoenix

@SquidgyAsh This review is making it really hard for me not to open my bottle (I have 17 bottles open right now and want to finish a few off before opening more). Nice review.

Great review @SquidgyAsh I managed to find the last 2 bottles at my local and snapped them up in a flash. The Phoenix's vibrant smell inviting you to sample, surprises with it's range of flavours, from the careful blending of the different ages (13 - 30 yo). I must say it's not the most urbane whiskey I have ever tasted, as these differences are rough but very welcomed on the palate. Enjoy it cold, and enjoy the pheonix burn!

Thanks you guys! Michaelschout I'd suggest holding off on opening the Snow Phoenix because to me it's such a good whisky that I know I'm going to be quite upset when I finish it off. To be honest I'm eyeing a couple more bottles in the UK and waiting for my wife to say I've been good enough to buy a couple more bottles of it :D The longer you can put off that fateful day when you no longer have the Phoenix the better off you are my friend.

Marcooda you're right that some of the differences in the whisky can be quite pronounced and now I'm feeling a wee bit bad that I didn't mention that. I gotta be honest though that I'm full of envy of you grabbing your hands on the last two bottles. My wife and I when we had it in Melbourne were informed that we were finishing the last bottle in Melbourne :D As soon as we got home we started hunting down our next bottle.

It's not the best whisky in the world and I think part of my love for it comes from the really good memories I have of it when I was teaching my wife about whiskies and the differences between them. It was really an awesome moment of bonding for us newlyweds and will become a lifelong hobby for us I think. :D

$200-$400 a bottle for something that has a production number of 60,000? hahaha I won't pay that for sure

Like I said I definitely wouldn't have paid $200 bucks for this except due to the fact that it has sentimental appeal to my wife and myself. It's a good bottle. It's not a GREAT bottle. That being said they're running for around $400 to $700 AUS on ebay last time I checked. Sell 1 bottle and pay for 2. Not a bad deal. That being said $200 is the upper limit for what I would pay for a bottle of this, again due to the emotional appeal for my wife and myself.

Great review @SquidgyAsh! I received a bottle as an early, surprise Christmas gift from @WhiskyJoe. We were at the store when a lady bought three GSP's for her whisky friends. This bottling seemed to be 'the' Christmas gift to give in Ontario for 2011 as their stock is now sold out. It also helped that it was (by LCBO standards) really well priced @ CAN$90!

The bottle has been very enjoyable (I actually got a fudge note during the first couple of weeks of the bottle being opened...that has now given way to the profile that you have described nicely @SquidgyAsh).

I am disappointed that Glenfiddich, in all the overpackaging that went with this release (nicely done, but too much to my mind) didn't see fit to provide more detail about the 'limited' bottling run (if it was so limited, why weren't the bottles numbered?) and the ages of the whiskies used in the vatting. Whisky gets an 'A', marketing info gets a 'D' grade.

I bought a bottle of this for my father for Christmas (just before Christmas there were quite a few bottles in the LCBO stores in Ontario, and it was about $80CDN; I can't find any now). I agree with all you say, and even my mom liked it (she won't let my dad touch it without it being an occasion, as he would otherwise guzzle it pretty fast!) The marketing was very clever but also somewhat over the top as the quality of the whisky speaks for itself.

@Pudge72 and @Talexander Thanks for the comments guys! I totally agree with you @Pudge72 about there should have been some sort of way to identify the bottles considering that it was supposed to be a limited run. Makes me kind of irritated that there wasn't. I didn't get the fudge note yet, but now I wanna go crack open my bottle again and see if I can't find it:D:D As for the marketing you're both right, it was quite over the top. It's a pretty box, but it could have been just as nice with a plainer case. Once more thanks for the kind comments!

@squidgyash @pudge72

Why would they number a bottle when there was 60,000 bottles sent out world wide??? That's why I said I wouldnt pay that price. You can email them to confirm the 60,000 production number. Here is what they emailed me.

"We can confirm that 60,000 bottles were produced for worldwide distribution.

Kind regards"

I could only imagine how much I could get for my bottle of Cask of Dreams then if I shipped international

@Fastpoose I've seen them sell for $700+ per bottle on ebay over here. When my wife and I went looking for a bottle after our honeymoon the only ones over here in AUS we could find were on ebay and we werent willing to pay those prices. We've had to ship all our bottles in from the UK to get an anywhere sane price.

@Ryan502 Mate you gotta understand that when you live in the US since it's such a huge market that good whiskies aren't too hard to come by, especially for reasonable prices over there. Over there a bottle of Knob Creek was going for around $40 bucks when I left the US. It's a good bottle, but by no means the best bourbon ever. Over here IF you can find it (and I've only found 1 store that sells it) it'll run you around $100 bucks. The problem is over here the market is smaller so we get less of the good stuff. The good stuff we get runs quite abit more then it would in the US. The good part is minimum wage over here sits at around $15 bucks so it's not quite like buying a $200 bottle in the states.

I'm don't kn

I'm not sure how eBay is outside of the states, but I know there is about 100 bottles on there for sale now. Yeah knob creek isn't that much. I live in Louisville,Ky so I'm only 15min drive from Jim beam and a ton of other distillerys. It's really hard to get rare whiskies here in Ky which you would think is crazy because its the largest bourbon / whiskey state. It's against the law to have spirits mailed to any residential address in this state. Oh and yeah our minimum wage is $7.25... Most people here think Johnnie Walker is top of the line @ $170 for blue label lol.

As a general rule, because the LCBO is a government liquor monopoly in Ontario (which, among other things, doesn't allow importing of liquor from other jurisdictions), pricing here can be ridiculous. Only a few distillers have their bottles at a price that is similar to what you would pay in an average US jurisdiction. Glenfarclas, Bowmore, and Glenfiddich are the ones that first come to mind.

When I see the featured British retailers on Connosr's own Whisky Marketplace selling the GSP for the British equivalent of CAN$133 - $158, the $90 selling price at the LCBO (when you could get it before Christmas...what I assume was their entire allocation, is now sold out completely) was a rare (in Ontario) bit of excellent pricing. :)

Really enjoyed this review and the comments. Nice to hear your special background to this dram. I would pay for it too, if I were in your shoes.

It's wondering me that you're saying the market in Australia is small. I noticed a lot Aussies here :) Is the charge for change and shipping very high, or why arent you ordering more from Europe? Maybe some collective order?

Greetings from Germany!

Wills my friend thanks for the comment! I think Customs fees and the population play a big role in what whiskies we find in Australia and how much they run for. I know that Customs can be very expensive having ordered quite a few bottles from overseas. I tend to order from the UK as I find the prices quite abit cheaper, but IF I get nailed with Customs then the price after shipping everything tends to be comparable to what it would cost over here in Perth.

For most bottles if I can find it nationally for a reasonable price I'll buy it here, but alot of my favorite bottles are very difficult to find in Australia or are sold out when I can finally afford them, hence the reason I search overseas.

Well I wish you good luck searching. I was just ordering my first whisky from the UK this week. Because I was searching for a special one which isn't available in Germany. For me the prizes for shipping are quite OK but of course it's a long way to Down Under ;)

I picked up four Bottles in Ontario but have yet to taste it. I am building a new house and our open house will be whiskey tasting day. I received a bottle of Macallan 25 year old Scotch for my 65th B-Day from my son and it too will be one of the open house tastes.